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Alright then, looks like it will be game on for this weekend at Austin's Capital City Carnage. This will, in fact, be my first 2-day event, so I'm quite looking forward to it. This and my battles with Kiwidru have been a great painting motivator (though I've still got to finish an organ gun, display board, and a couple other extras in the next 36 hours...)

The event will take 5 games, and there is space for up to 80 players, making it about 5 times larger than any previous one I've done. Comp isn't explicit, beyond a prohibition on special characters. Army lists are submitted for approval in advance, which seems to indicate that the extreme heights of shenanigans won't be reached, though I fully expect to run against some plenty hard lists.

My list is here- very similar to the one I've been running for the past few months. I've gone non-gunline, non-anvil to avoid any complaints and because I enjoy having large blocks on the field.

Dwarf Lord- great weapon, shieldbearers, Rune of Stone, Master Rune of Steel, Rune of Resistance, Master Rune of Challenge, Rune of the Furnace
Thane- BSB, Strollaz Rune, Rune of Guarding
Runesmith- shield, Spelleater Rune, Rune of Spellbreaking
Dragonslayer
25 Dwarf Warriors, shields, standard, musician
24 Dwarf Warriors, shields, standard, musician
19 Longbeards, shields, full command, Rune of Courage
15 Hammerers, shields, full command
12 Slayers
6 Miners
Bolt thrower, Engineer, Rune of Penetrating, Rune of Burning
Bolt thrower, Engineer, Rune of Burning
Gyrocopter
Organ Gun

I've set myself a number of goals for the weekend. I don't expect to hit them all, but I think I should tick a few off:

1) Pick up at least two wins (these may come on Sunday after I've lost my way down to the lower tables)
2) Finish in the top half (probably will end up quite draw dependent)
3) Finish as the top Dwarf player (this and the next are aided by the fact that there are currently only 3 Dwarf players signed up!)
4) Finish as the top Dwarf general
5) Keep my head up (first event of this kind, so I don't plan on ruining it by feeling sorry for myself if I have a game of bad luck, or get tabled or some such)

I think my painting won't hurt me, though I won't be winning any awards for it either. I've got some conversions I'm proud of, but also a couple units showing their age, and no super-cool diorama style display board. If I have time, I'll link up some pictures of my army before I head out, otherwise, I'll see what I can manage after the fact.

To make it a super entertainment weekend, I'll be seeing some live music on Saturday night as well (Dr. Dog and Deer Tick), so likely no update till the weekend is completely over with. But it's on!

RZ

Good luck to you, Zeke. Looks like a truly stout list and may you meet your goals

Good luck, RZ. I am wishing you all the best. May your axe strike true and your shield stay strong. And may your beard grow long and your belly grow full.

Now that you have sharpened your axes on all my chaos go give'm hell!

Good luck man, like that list and dig them goals

Will look forward to your tales of victory!

- Salvage

Give 'em hell, mate.

Hey all,

Thanks for the well-wishes. Had a blast on day 1. The write-up will take some time, but I've posted some army pics over in the blog section of Dakka.

Here is... a link!

You can scroll down to the post with many a pic for the actual models that made it out this weekend.

RZ

I am glad you had a blast. Was it only the 1st day that was fun?

Congratz on the army being painted. It looks good, I would say great, but even I can see the difference between that warrior regiment and the rest. Are you going to post up any more pictures of the rest of the army? I would like to see those rangers too.

Second day is yet to come- games 4 and 5 tomorrow.

It's been great seeing so many cool armies, and it's got me motivated to keep going- bigger and better. It's nice to have 2250 painted, so a little of the pressure is off.

RZ

Well, I'm sure taking my sweet time, aren't I?

So a night of hurried efforts to complete my organ gun and its crew, followed by an embarrassingly bad display board (go plywood with two hills glued on and spraypainted!) left me a little short on sleep, but at least I was fully painted, to a standard I could accept, at least for my first foray into 2-day events.

Morning broke, and I started with a 4 mile run and some eggs- exercise and nutrition being the friend of mental acuity (and the enemy of sleep in this case). A quick trip downtown to the venue resulted in the alarming discovery that the published location was wrong. After a bit of wandering, I found a convention center employee who informed me that Capital City Carnage was now being held in "Meeting Room 9" instead of the (nonexistent) "Hall 6". A good argument for showing up early...

I got in to the gaming room, and chatted with some of the locals while scoping out the competition. I'll include a few armies here, but these are by no means comprehensive. Some pretty awesome talent on display.

A Beastman list themed after Mad Max. That's actually the movie playing in the display board.




Had no idea what was going on here at first- it's actually a tomb kings army, and those are all chariots...



An Avatar themed Wood Elf army. It's got the really cool Ultraforge tree-woman, big conversions, and beautiful painting. This is Ryan Smith's and it was the winner of Best Army *and* Best Painted.



To my dismay and envy, one of the other dwarf lists, run by Joe G. (turned out to be 4 in total) was put together in an awesome dwarven hall. There weren't any conversions that I could see, but he'd picked some cool models and his painting was far, far better than mine. With an anvil to boot, it looked like my dreams of being top Dwarf were going to be hard to realize.



After a short pep-talk, we pulled our Game 1 opponents. I found myself facing Mike J. from Dallas and his Empire list. First round match-ups were determined based on judge assigned comp, and it looked like we both must have been considered fairly soft. Mike was running his list:

Siegfried von Mannheim's Steamroller

Grand Master on barded steed with Sword of Power (+2 str) and Shroud of Magnus (5+ward, MR-2) [in IC knights]
Warrior Priest on barded steed with Hammer of Judgment (T test on hit or automatic wound) and Enchanted Shield [in IC knights]
Battle Wizard, level 1, 2 dispel scrolls [in swordsmen]
Warrior priest on foot with Armor of Meteoric iron (1+ save) and Icon of Magnus (No fear, and terror counts as fear) [in greatswords]
2 x 5 knights with musician
25 swordsmen with full command & 10 man free company detachment
20 Flagellants with prophet
24 Greatswords with full command & 10 man swordsman detachment
8 Inner circle knights full command and warbanner
5 Outriders
Great Cannon
Hellblaster

At first glance, things seemed pretty manageable, though the Immune to Psych on the big unit of knights would mean I couldn't just use the MR of Challenge to make things easy. All the combat units was good news, as it meant he'd be looking for a fight.

Our scenario was Battle of the Bands- each army selects a musician to be the Band Leader. The Band Leader can engage a number of special effects, and bonus points are gained or lost by killing the opposing band leader and his unit, and not having the same happen to you.

I was happy to discover that terrain was set for most matches, which was great, and made things interesting without the usual silliness that comes from "strategic" terrain placement.

Deployment resulted in his artillery on the second tier of a hill with outriders just ahead (so all could fire). His battle line had both units of core knights out wide to either flank, and from left to right, his swordsmen with supporting detachment, flagellants, greatswords, the shooting hill, and his IC knights with characters. His spell was Fireball.

I was in my usual tight set-up, warriors, organ gun, longbeards with BSB and Runesmith, hammerers, warriors, and slayers. Bolt throwers were on the hill out to the right- possibly leaving them open to getting taken by the core knights on that flank, but I figured he'd feel he need them to deal with the blocks instead. My wily plan was incredibly complicated- push forward up the middle- use the organ gun to blast any knight units that tried to get behind me, and until then try to shred his shooters off the hill. The gyro was far to the left and planning to harrass the knights out there for as long as possible while avoiding getting cannoned or hell-blastered out of the sky.

This is the situation after my Strollaz move...



And this is where I'll leave you for tonight as it's midnight, and I'm up at 5- more tomorrow!

RZ

So where were we? Ah yes, the inevitable crushing charge of the Dwarves... like a tide of all-destroying Molasses.

Turn 1
So despite a +1 to the roll, Mike won the chance for first turn and gladly took it. There was a general advance from the Empire lines. Magic was a non-starter- with 2 bound 4 and a level 1 caster, I wasn't going to have much trouble. His Band Leader played Thunderstruck, generating Uranon's thunderbolt, but there were still dice to go around. Shooting was relatively light if you were anything but a hammerer, who lost 6 of their number. Mercifully the hellblaster jammed after a few shots, missing next turn as well.



On my turn I trundled up to the mid-field line, with the organ gun following behind to set up its kill-zone. My BSB decided King Olaf was way too much of a fire magnet and dashed over to the Longbeards. I stomped the Lord and hammerers up straight ahead. I knew his outriders were right on the edge of his deployment zone, which would put them about 12" away. They were positioned in such a way that I'd be able to MR of Challenge them, giving him the choice of fleeing through his own war machines, and with a good chance of leaving the board. If they did charge, they'd force his general's unit to split the frontage, keeping the IC knight attacks to a minimum. I also held back my unit of 24 warriors, trying to bait a flank from the smaller knight unit, and worried about the large knights charging right past the hammerers into a softer, more breakable target. On the left, I protected my flank with the gyro, and all seemed well. The bolt throwers didn't have much for targets so dropped single knight on the right.



Turn 2

Started with my King saying very rude things about the Outriders' relationship with their mothers, prompting a charge. In a show of support, the swordsmen, greatswords, and all 3 units of knights also declared charges. Mike was delighted to have, for the first time, actually run out of charge markers. I was delighted to be on the receiving end of this. Mike made a critical error here, by declaring charges in the wrong order, and leaving his supporting knights on the right blocked from combat by his Inner Circle knights. He noted that this likely was going to cost him the game. My gyro fled, leaving his knights on the left out of the fight for this turn. Shooting and magic provided no benefit and we were on to the combat phase. Entire army in combat by the top of Turn 2! Awesome news. It also looked awesome, with blocks stuck in everywhere.

His swordsmen completely and utterly bounced off my 25 warriors, breaking and panicking a detachment away. Realizing their chance to be the fastest dwarves *ever* the warriors pursued 11" which could have put me 1" outside the enemy deployment zone at the start of my turn 2, but a pesky free-company detachment got in the way. My longbeards, BSB, and runesmith got in a massive whiff-fest with his warrior priest and greatswords. I lost by 1, but passed the re-rollable 9 leadership. My King chopped a couple wounds of the Grand Master in a challenge for none in return, and my hammerers took a single casualty in exchange for one outrider. This resulted in a dead-on tie.



In the bottom of 2, I sent my slayers into the flank of the knights, and my warriors into the big combat for extra combat resolution. A rousing rendition of "Born to Run" on my Band Leader's tuba got them an extra 2" charge, and they were in easily. On the left, my gyro failed to rally, which gummed things up by leaving his knights available to act freely. This was a problem, but one that I felt obliged to ignore for no reason I can now discern. I actually had shots available from all 3 war machines, but I had so convinced myself before the turn that the gyro would take care of things that I didn't do this- step 1 in throwing away the game had just been taken. The mistake here was that I had essentially picked my targets before the movement phase, and stuck with them, despite the gyro deciding to fly combination loop-the-loop barrel rolls instead of doing his job. The chosen target, Empire artillery, was largely unaffected, with one cannon crewman losing a pinky finger to the organ gun, and the cannon taking a couple of wounds.

In a tasty combat phase, my warriors broke through their detachment, heading deeper into empire territory, and eying the artillery hill. Longbeards threw a bunch of attacks at the enemy Band Leader but failed to do much of anything. The greatswords returned the favor, and the combat was a draw. Over in the main event, my lord finished off his in the challenge with some overkill to boot, though I took the only wound of the entire tournament on my king in . With the help of an additional +4 combat res from some Springsteen loving dwarf warriors I not only broke the unit, but ran it down! To add insult to injury, my warriors hit the small knight unit, providing combat resolution there as well. My slayers managed to kill a single knight, breaking the remaining 3 and pursuing into the flagellants to set up a "last man standing" match in a battle of the unbreakables.

Massive points (846 from the Inner Circle knights and characters including the general and captured standard bonuses), and it looked like the game was in the bag, but for the pesky case of the knights on the left...



Turn 3

Mike was up against it, but not quite ready to throw in the towel. He was about to charge his knights into my organ gun. I must have let my poker face slip, because he suddenly noticed the hideously exposed flank of my longbeards, and went on in. Elsewhere, one detachment fled off the board, and the other continued to run. His outriders and knights rallied, and turned to re-join the fray.

Once again, it was a bad shooting phase to be a hammerer, and the unit was reduced to 4 strong, plus my King.

In combat, both sides weren't very interested in *doing* anything, which was still bad news for me. Losing by 5, I was on a re-rollable 5 for the break-test. First check came up a...




Nice! Hold out two more phases, now with non-charging knights, and my lord would be on his way to save the day!



In the bottom of 3, my lord hopped over to the warriors. I needed to turn to face the combat, but couldn't afford to take a cannon-ball down the flank. Can't say that my hammerers much appreciated being hung out to dry...



In the shooting phase, I put a bolt down the flank of the rallied knights, killing all but one, and panicking him away for good. The organ gun scored 10 hits on the outriders, scattering pieces of horse, rider and gun all over the cannon crew, convincing them to take a walk off the board. In fact, all was well until combat called for a re-rollable 6 break test on my longbeards, which was... failed twice. This surrendered a good 800 points right back for the Longbeards, BSB, Runesmith and 2 captured standards. Really, really shoulda shot those knights...

To make things worse, my warriors in the Empire deployment zone panicked.

Turn 4-6

Yikes- I was definitely edging right back to a draw at this point. My warriors chased off the last detachment, while the Hellblaster managed to wipe out my hammerers, my slayers wiped out his flagellants to a man. The gyro finally rallied on the board edge, just in time to take a charge from the 5 core knights that were ruining my day. I decided to hold- if I could survive the charge, I'd be testing on an 8 most turns afterwards. This worked until the final turn, when the gyro finally broke and ran off the table. I managed to force a panic check on the greatswords, with a couple devastating bolt thrower shots, but it was unfortunately passed.

All was left was the adding up.

All told, I'd picked up a little less than 400 victory points more than Mike, enough for a win. He'd gotten all the bonus points, and I'd gotten none (my hammerer musician was kicked to death by outriders, while his greatsword musician was able to endure 6 WS 5 str 4 attacks and happily drum away through all of it.

So final score? 16-8 to the Dwarves!

A great first game, and only my second against Empire, so educational to boot! Definitely a forgiving matchup for my army, though I'd done my best to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory, I already had one of the two wins I was hoping for... Mike was a great opponent, and actually got in to the spirit of the scenario and sang several bars of song in the middle of the battle.

Where to next? Tune in later for more...

Superb stuff Red, top notch reporting. Great first match too, really showing warhammer at its finest IMO, with lots of combat between blocks with some cav and war machine action, sans crazy magic, monsters running amok or skirmishers everywhere

Def looking forward to the rest of the event.

- Salvage

Excellent report RZ. Congratz on the win. My only advice, take those target practice signs off your hammerers.

Gotta agree with the boogeyman here. Very good report and glad that you had one heck of an ironic music choice for your dwarves. That mission seemed really interesting. I hope there are more like it.

What a nailbiter! I would love to hear a dwarven tuba version of Born to Run...

I continue to be surprised that you can get such a combat-heavy list to perform so well. My hat would be off to you, if I wore a hat.

Thanks for the report. Looking forward to more coverage from this event. It's been very interesting watching the development of this army and it's test games.

If you need any suggestions for doable display bases, let us know. I have some ideas.

- Blackbone

Hi Blackbone,

I'm all for any suggestions on a display base. Given I have rock and snow bases, I was planning on some sort of dwarven outpost thing, preferably that I could disassemble and use for actual terrain, so the work put in is more efficient.

@ others:

The 4 songs your musician could play (declared at the beginning of each turn and one use each) include:

Born to Run: One unit in 12" gets an additional D3+1" to their charge move.
Thunderstruck: A bound 5 Uranon's (I could have a magic phase! That will never go off!)
Can't Touch This: Unit within 12" gets a 5+ ward for your turn only
Give Peace a Chance: One enemy w/in 24" must pass a leadership test or it may not shoot or charge.

Working up Game 2 this afternoon...

RZ

After a break for lunch and some good Texas barbecue, we were back, and on Table 15. The scenario was "All Along the Clocktower". A narrow tower was in the dead center of the board. Inside was a sniper with BS 5 and a hochland who would pop shots at the closest unit in each turn, attempting to pick off characters, champions and the like. He had T4, 2 wounds and a 5+ ward. You could earn 1 bonus point for killing him, and 3 for occupying the tower at the end of the game.

I initially thought I was facing a VC list with lots of ghouls and a couple large grave guard units. Didn't particularly like the idea of trying to kick graveguard out of the tower, but it turned out I'd be playing against Tomb Kings for the first time ever!

Brandon had forgotten his extra lists back in the hotel, so this is from memory:

Tomb King: Destroyer of Eternities, Collar of Shapesh
Heirophant Liche priest: Jar, Scroll
Liche priest: Staff of Ravening, scroll
Liche priest: Enkhil's Kanopi?
15 skeleton warriors, hand weapon, shield
20 skeleton archers, full command, raise dead banner
3 bases of tomb swarms
3 chariots
3 chariots
Large (20-ish) unit of Tomb Guard with free reform banner
5 Carrion
2 Tomb Scorpions
2 Screaming Skull catapults

I really could have thought this through a little bit better. I knew about the turn one charge trick, but put my war machines on the hill anyways. I'd screened them with units on the hill, but forgot I was planning on using Strollaz to march away anyhow. I should have at least left a line of warriors to block this. Other options might have been to put the machines behind the woods, and then move them up, where they'd be safe from carrion (though not the scorps and swarms) or on level ground. Ah well.

Slayers hung back to help protect the war machines, with the battle line looking like warriors, hammerers, longbeards, warriors. My dragonslayer went into the large woods on the right to make it dangerous to stray to close to them with his chariots. Brandon had his tomb guard located centrally with Tomb King and heirophant, a catapult close by for My Will Be Done and Incantation shennanigans, a guardian scorpion, the large archers, the other catapult, and warriors to my right. Both chariots were out wide for protection, and the swarm and a scorpion burrowed after my machines.

I put myself on the back foot here by forgetting that the clock tower was *only* bonus points, and acted like it was the sole victory condition. Woops. Thus a Strollaz move that left my war machines open, despite being fully aware of what was coming.

Here's what it looked like:



The more I look at this, the more I wish I'd used the forest on the right. Ah well. Also the dragonslayer would have been more helpful dealing with scorpions and swarms I think...

We diced off, and once again the +1 was to no avail, and Brandon gladly took the first turn, since I'd been kind enough to set things up for him.

Turn 1

Movement was pretty minimal, with some chariots shuffling and skeletons shifting to pour fire in at the sniper (who shot my lord, but failed to wound). Magic phase commenced, and I actually managed to stop the onslaught of incantations and buy my war machines a round. I figured on 2 "My Will Be Done" and 3 incantations, including the jar. Dropping 2 for with my scrolls would leave me with 4 dice of incantations to stop with my 5, so I knew I'd have to try to get away with one dicing the king at least once- which I did. If I got really lucky, I'd get spelleater to chew up the heirophant's urgency before he used his jar, thus saving me a scroll for later, and taking a little more pressure off. It was sadly not to be. Couldn't really complain though, as I'd bought a round of shooting for the hill.

The Tomb King archery didn't care about the -3 to hit the sniper (single target in hard cover), but only snuck a single wound onto him, which meant I'd probably get him in my turn. Yeah! One bonus point! At this point, catapult fire started raining down on my lines- one of them killing 9 longbeards. Thankfully Old Grumbler's allowed them to ignore the panic, reminiscing about the times when magical flaming skulls actually were worth worrying about, not like these ones today. It would seem that in the past, these things hit like an ICBM or something.

In my turn, I declared a charge on the tower, with my general, and advanced the rest, angling my warriors to try to keep the chariots honest, though really, they were going to do whatever they felt like. I made a silly aggressive move with the gyro, thinking I could edge out of the chariot's LOS (forgetting that it probably didn't matter anyways, as they could be incantationed after a reform). I was vaguely thinking of taking off the catapult or going after a liche priest.

Shooting rolled around, and I figured that if I could drop the carrion down to 3 or less, it'd give me a chance to survive a charge, with numbers being less of an issue. And if he tried to raise them first, he'd be having to skip the chance to move them with his King. Unfortunately, the organ gun got 2 hits (after I re-rolled a 4) and both bolt throwers missed for a total of one measly wound on the carrion. The gyro blasted 5 warriors down.

In hand to hand, I easily dispatched the sniper, and my lord, BSB, and all the hammerers, decided to amuse themselves by seeing how many they could fit into the tower. Somehow, the answer was apparently "all of them".



Turn 2

Carrion sailed in to my organ gun, and chariots ran down my gyro (silly move on my part). None of the burrowing units arrived, and otherwise, movement continued to be very minimal. I got off relatively lightly between magic and shooting, as the undead were obviously too entertained by the sight of a tower bulging at the seams to really get their withered hearts into it. Even better, the carrion failed to cause any wounds on the charge, and my dwarfs used the hill to even out the outnumber advantage. Unfortunately, wihtout the dragonslayer (or anyone really) around, I couldn't effect much of a rescue.

In my turn, my king shouted encouragement as he tried not to explode out of an ominously creaking 3rd story window, and I pushed on towards the tomb king lines on the right, while my warriors on the left turned around to see what all the screaming was about up on the hill. Miners sauntered on near the catapult, and far, far away from free-reforming Tomb Guard. I did manage to shatter a chariot on the left with my Strength 7 bolt thrower, but not much else. This time, the carrion had things figured out, and killed all the organ gun crew in combat.

With no picture, it's right on to...

Turn 3

Both tunnelers arrive, with the swarms landing dead on one bolt thrower, and the scorpion scattering exactly around the blocking slayers, leaving the other bolter to fight carrion *and* a scorpion. Poop. In the magic/shooting/Tomb Kings do lots and lots of things phase, my longbeards were combo-charged by chariots to the front, and a scorpion to the rear. There was also an almost perfect magic phase guess to the middle of my warriors on the left that missed, followed by a really perfect shooting phase shot. You know it's bad when it's more convenient to just look in the rule book at that picture of the ideal stonethrower shot to figure out how many partials have been inflicted. I *did* manage to get away with only 5 wounds after some pretty terrible partials and wound rolls. I also shut down a magical charge into my miners, giving me a good chance of getting the catapult in my turn.

In hand to hand, the chariots were less than impressive. Brandon didn't think that I could get hand weapon shield bonus against his 3 wounding impact hits. I was pretty sure I did, but made it a moot point by rolling all 5s on the armor saves. The chariots actually failed to inflict any wounds at all, but the scorpion ruined things by collecting 4 kills. I laid only a single wound on one chariot, but passed the break test easily. The scorpion failed to withhold overrunning and went in to my slayers, which wasn't too terrible

In my turn 3, 24 warriors went into the flank of the chariots, miners went into the catapult, and warriors in the backfield dithered around. With no shooting left, we were on to hand to hand. The Tomb Scorpion realized he was touching my runesmith, and got a single hit, resulting in a killing blow. Joy. I did return the favor by popping the scorpion and taking the chariots down to just 2 wounds. My miners trashed the catapult and overran into the 10 shield skeletons on the hill. The scorpion fluffed into the slayers and was popped back in return. Not actually a terrible matchup for slayers- who enjoy the toughness 5 target.

The state of things:



Turn 4-6

Relentless shelling continues, and the Tomb Guard finally commit. I'm down to just my 4 dispel dice after my runesmith was chopped up, so things have become hard to stop. The staff of ravening, which I'd forgotten about drops the dragonslayer as he tries to make a run for the far side.



My slayers prove to be quite tough, and survive several rounds of combat, with chariots to the front (I was in a weird 2x6 formation) and swarms to the flank. In fact, they made it all the way to the end of the game, just barely missing out on a chance to crumble the chariots and swarms to half strength each. On the right, I have to turn around when I realize I just can't make it to the TK fast enough. The chariots slowed me down too much, and unlike living armies, I didn't make up ground with a pursuit roll after winning.



When time came to add things up, I'd lost all my war-machines, my dragonslayer, runesmith, and put slayers, longbeards, and warriors at half.

In exchange, I'd gotten very little, as the things I'd hit had been very cheap. I'd picked up all the bonus points for an...


8-16 Loss


I wasn't terribly unhappy with this. The bonus points were nice. I think if I'd realized just how hard it was going to be to get any points, I'd have been a lot more conservative with the gyro and dragonslayer, kept the runesmith with the hammerers instead of being silly and getting him killed. Some of the problem with the runesmith is that in most of my practice games, he had a rune of stone, shield and great weapon, which meant he was occasionally useful in a fight. Now he was dead two games in a row, and giving up too many points when he went. With some changes to deployment that I mentioned early on, I think I could have turned this into a draw, with 3 of the bonus points my way, for an 11-9 score in my favor. I also took my lord and hammerers out of the fight by moving them into the building. Not sure if they'd have achieved anything, otherwise, but I could have been out the other side on Turn 2 and headed for a showdown with the Tomb Guard.Brandon did well, knew his army and clearly outplayd me. I was very happy to have gotten a game in against TK at last. I'd love to play TK again soon, without the distraction of the scenario and see what I can get up to.

So where to next?

Awesome report, the pictures really do help.

I love your style of dwarf army, it really does warm the heart seeing big blocks fighting big blocks.

So! Game 3 was next. I packed up, wandered around trading stories about games thus far and generally enjoying myself. The draw went up, and I was on...


Table 1?????

Something's not right...



I was informed that the table number had nothing to do with anything until the final game. Unfortunately, I was in mid celebratory dance on *top* of table 1 at that point, creating an embarrassing situation for all involved.

My opponent was none other than Jeff Grajeda, who, along with his father had absolutely kicked the teeth out the back of our heads in a team tournament some time ago. On the flip side, they'd been very nice about it, so I was happy for the rematch.

Jeff had a not so awful skaven list that looked like this:

Grey Seer, Foul Pendant, 2 scrolls, power stone
Warlock Engineer, Lvl 2, Energy Condenser, Doom Rocket
Plague Priest, Lvl 2, Plague Censer, dispell scroll
Assassin, Warpstone throwing Stars
2x20 Slaves
2x24 clanrats with full command and ratling gun attachment
24 clanrats with full command and poisoned wind mortar
6 jezzails with sharpshooter
Doomwheel
Hellpit Abomination

Jeff won the roll for side, and elected to take the side with a hill. This was mostly fine with me, as my war machines would have their hands full with large targets. Deployment saw his mobs deployed fairly centrally, with doomwheel extremely wide to my right, and HPA very wide to my left, with accompanying crowd of censer bearers and plague priest.

I had my usual tight deployment, but through the dragonslayer wide left to bait away censers and gyro wide right to hide from Jezzails. Unfortunately, this put it in the path of the doomwheel, and set the scene for potential ZZZaps. Forgot about those. In order to keep my runesmith alive for once, I decided to attach him to the strength 7 bolt thrower, giving me a US 5 team to pick up one of my objectives (see below).

The grey seer ended up with Skitterleap, Plague, Wither, and the Dreaded 13th spell. Warlock took Warp Lightning and Death Frenzy, while the Plague Censer had Wither and Pestilent Breath.

Our scenario was Gerrymandering, which split the board into 6 sections, of which you secretly selected 4 to capture. I picked the two I started in, and the two directly across from me. Jeff, I found out later, picked the 4 that I didn't start in. Capturing worked as board quarters, and were worth 1 bonus point each. Board quarters provided no VPs this game either.

I actually won the first turn, and gladly took it while my gyro pilot breathed a sigh of relief. With the magic and weapons teams, I needed to get mashed in as quickly as possible. My shooting might be enough to drop at least one of the big guys, especially the hell-pit, who had a long way to go. Combined with Strollaz, I was a good way up the field, and in another turn or two, would be able to challenge the grey seer's unit, hopefully with miners walking on behind, or close enough to the board edge that it'd be very risky to flee. I walked my BSB into my general's unit to bolster that side of the line, as I felt pretty confident on the right. If the doomwheel committed, I'd hopefully be able to get some slayers into it, as they'd be an okay match-up for actually destroying the thing.

This is what the field looked like after my first movement phase. I realized I didn't manage to squeeze the skaven rares into the picture, which is too bad, as their positioning was pretty important. Just know that the hell pit was out very wide left, and back behind a forest, while the doomwheel was on the right hand table edge.



Oh man, look at that hammerer unit, bristling with banners and heroes. It'd be a shame if something happened to it... Shooting did put two wounds on the doomwheel, but didn't cause any zany malfunctions.

More to follow soonly...

RZ

Arrrgh! I want to know what happens!

- Blackbone

Yeah, me too.

Again, excellent reports, Zeke.

So things were going pretty well. I was roaring across the board, and had put two wounds on the doomwheel already. Of course, the skaven had yet to actually take a turn, but this was really just a minor detail as far as I was concerned.

Movement was fairly simple. The Hell Pit tried to make a break for a building for cover, but needed a big roll and didn't get it. The doomwheel headed for the slayers, but looked to be pretty close to a unit of slaves as well, possibly protecting me from a ZZap. The rest of the blocks moved up, while the slaves moved very aggressively forward, one of them setting a redirect, the other not bothering.

The magic phase rolled around. My plan wasn't as focused as it should be. I hate wither, but tend to forget it only has a 12" range. I let a warp lightning through for 4 hits on the hammerers, resulting in 3 dead. The plague priest attempted a long range casting of wither, but failed to meet the casting value. With the remaining 4 dice, Jeff threw them at the Dreaded 13th. The result? A three, a four, and two sixes... Oh no...

4D6 hammerers were getting turned into skaven- I couldn't remember exactly how this spell worked with characters in the unit, (and a non- US 1 character to boot), but it ended up a moot point as "only" 10 were instantly removed. This left me with the front rank of the champion, unit standard, BSB and Dwarf Lord. Ouch. Still, I'd be able to bail out and run for a bigger unit next turn, and with the skaven moving up, I was close to being able to pull off some Challenge Rune shenanigans.

The shooting phase had a poisoned wind mortar clip my longbeards, causing a single casualty, and the jezzails using the hill to try to shoot the gyro out of the sky, but only getting 1 wound through (on 5s and 3s with 6 shots). One ratling gun shot a couple slayers, while the other targeted my tiny general's unit, but only inflicted one casualty with 7-ish hits. (My BSB and Lord soaked up their share easily). The doomwheel was too close to slaves, so restrained the Zap. So that was that- brutal, but the 4D6 casualties *could* have wiped out the unit easily, so fair enough.

Oh yeah, any panic tests? The hammerer unit had lost the champion from shooting, which was one of the last 4 models. Okay, no problem. I check on the lord and hammerers, Ld 10.

Eleven.

Okay, Old Grumblers are close enough, re-roll.

Eleven.

Damn. I took a step back, and considered the situation. I think Jeff was just marveling at the failed leadership yet, and hadn't seen the worst part. Which was...

The King and BSB were fleeing, along with one last hammerer. Meaning they were in a unit below 25%. Meaning they weren't allowed to rally. Disastrous.

I took this opportunity to offer Jeff a beer, as I was clearly going to need one myself. To add insult to injury, I took a look and realized I had to leave the unit on the board, since they were still US 5, and due to run through my bolt thrower in a couple more turns. I decided to see if I could pull the biggest turnaround in my Warhammer life, but the game was going to be pretty much easy street for Jeff if I didn't pull something huge.

At this stage, I owe you a pic, but it didn't get taken until after my Turn 2. Just imagine, everything mostly the same, but with a small group of dwarves headed the opposite direction from everyone else.

Turn Two

Well, okay. Seems that I'm about 7-800 points in the hole after Turn one. No biggie.

Surveying the field, I had a few opportunities. For one, the miners were arriving (nice and early again). I declared a charge with warriors, gyro and slayers on the unit of slaves that had pushed forward. At the very least, the gyro would get a full move forward, possibly out of the arc of the jezzails. Jeff held with the slaves, which kind of surprised me. I assume he was planning on the "exploding slaves" to hit multiple units. I was glad that I'd get the charge move *and* the overrun. On my left, my warriors could have charged the slaves, and with a big overrun, hit another block of clan-rats, but I would have taken untouched censer bearers in the flank, so I shuffled slightly instead. Miners approached the rear of the jezzails. My longbeards marched up alongside. I felt pretty good about the situation on the right. With the Dwarf Lord to bolster the left, I'd feel especially strong -but we all know what happened there. Wide left, I put the dragonslayer in sight of the plague priest's censer bearers. If I'd been thinking about it, I maybe could have set up a situation where they had to conga line a charge, but I pushed forward a little too far. The idea at the time, was to draw the skaven away from my blocks for a couple turns, and force a slew of toughness tests.


Shooting destroyed the doomwheel (awesome) through the use of all 3 war machines. Good enough for me. Hand to hand wiped out the slaves, and gave a nice movement boost to my right on the overrun, leaving the middle to look like so...



The battle line after the lord and BSB decide to go back to the clock tower on Table 15 where they just drank beer for the entire game.

Bottom of 2, and the skaven pushed forward on both sides, with the warlock joining the gray seer in the central unit, which held back. His gutter runners had more interesting things to do. The abomination rumbled towards the middle, and the censer bearers charged over to the far corner of the board, unable to resist the rippling musculature of my flexing, naked dragonslayer. I managed to shut down magic (though Spelleater didn't destroy Wither, as I was hoping). Shooting pounded my longbeards, killing 13, mostly from a doom rocket. One ratling gun shot my gyro, causing another wound, while the other fired 10 times at the grey seer's unit for no casualties. The mortar also blew itself up, but wasn't close enough to clip it's own unit.

In combat, I passed my dragonslayer's toughness test, then watched as 3 censer bearers and the plaguepriest took a wound. Half the points on the priest? 85-ish points, thank you very much. I challenged the plague priest, and after some consideration Jeff accepted. It was a tough call, as he was already 4 combat res in the hole, and at least one of the bearers in contact with the slayer had choked to death. The priest needed 4s and 3s to wound, with no re-rolls, which meant I had a decent chance. Unfortunately, he hit with all 4 attacks, and wounded with two. If I'd gotten to attack back, I'd have almost certainly inflicted the final wound on the priest and run the rest off. But it was not to be.

Turn 3

Charges! I sent my miners into the jezzails, longbeards and warriors into the clanrats. The gyro swept around for a big shot on the gray seer's unit. I couldn't really figure out what the best move was with that gyro. At one wound left, he was probably going down to the next ratling gun to fire, but I needed to go high risk/high reward to get back in the game. My warriors on the left had a chance to charge the slaves, and with a big overrun go into the next clanrats, but then take a hellpit charge to the rear, so instead backed off again.

My slayers marched forward, seeking glorious death by boredom from sitting on objectives.

Shooting put 3 wounds on the hell pit (hooray for burning runes on both bolt throwers) courtesy of all 3 war machines. Could have been better, could have been worse, but I'll take it. The gyro came one casualty short of causing a panic check on the gray seer unit, which was disappointing. It would have been tasty revenge to get him panicking.

In combat, I killed two jezzails, then was surprised to learn that besides a 4+ save, the buggers had 2 attacks each. They came up with no kills, but we ended up tied, him having numbers and the hill. My longbeards and warriors only caused a couple casualties- but did have outnumber. Unfortunately, skaven leadership is not too shabby at full ranks in range of the general. He needed a 7, got it and held.

Here's what things looked like:



Oh, hi Hellpit. Thanks for coming by.

The skaven sent a flank charge on my longbeards, and the hellpit launched at my warriors. For whatever reason, I held- I don't remember how high the HPA had rolled, but it was close enough that I figured it was better to hope for a lucky round or two of combat. The gutter runners continued to bide their time. The censer bearers stayed behind their building, not being able to afford a round of shooting from the organ gun, and probably holding one of his objectives.

The clanrats fighting my longbeards and warriors to the front picked up death frenzy in the magic phase, but the grey seer took a wound from a miscast, so everything else was light.

Shooting dropped my gyro and killed a couple slayers, but most things were stuck in, so we went on to combat. The wonderful hellpit made a mockery of full ranks and outnumber, killed 11 warriors, and put me on a 3 to hold, which failed and got me run down, with all war machines now threatened. I love that thing...

The skaven did poorly on the charge over in the big fight on my right. I inflicted good casualties in return, and put both blocks on a 7 to hold. The clan rats to the front failed, with the flanking unit holding, which was bad news. Thinking about it now, I actually forgot that I could have turned and expanded frontage, which was particularly bad. I could have had 6 longbeards and a champ fighting next turn, with no flank bonus for the rats. I'd likely have still lost, but possibly by little enough to still hold, as I would have only been in the hole by 4 CR to start. As it was, I lost the static combat res from the warriors who had fought clear of combat, and ran down the clanrats, capturing a banner, and overrunning into the ratling gun, which chose to flee off the board. My miners lost two and killed two, drawing the combat again.

Turns 4-6

On the right, my slayers somehow manage to hold on to enough unit strength to grab me an objective, while the warriors mostly absorb shooting and glare at things they can't get to. My longbeards were run down, which as I mentioned above could have been mitigated if I'd been thinking. Ah well. On the upside, my war machines shot down the hell pit. If I'd fled with the warriors, they *might* have been caught, but if they hadn't have been, I'd be up one unit of warriors. The gutter runners finally arrived, and surrounded my bolt thrower, sniffing out my runesmith who was actually trying to survive a game.

Warpstone stars and a fistful of poisoned sling shots proved ineffective, but the counter fire from the organ gun was a misfire, and so in they went:



The skaven actually did go in with a full 5 in base, I just ranked them up wrong. It was corrected after the picture.

The assassin completely failed to inflict any wounds, but the runesmith returned the favor. In the meantime, the rest of the crew was poisoned to death, and the runesmith, not being stubborn failed his 6 to hold and was cut down. Elsewhere, my organ gun crew punched some slaves to death for a couple turns until the merciful end arrived.

The end result?

Loss: 5-17

I had a shot at pulling back to a draw, but things needed to go perfectly. I didn't do that, making a couple mistakes that had an outside shot at helping. Dice getting hot in a couple of places might have made up for those errors, but that didn't happen either (though they weren't particularly bad either). Jeff played a great game, and kindly did not gloat, and patiently waited while I explained to many a confused passerby why my general looked to be charging at my artillery emplacements.

As another note, if I'd thrown dispel dice at warp lightning in Turn One, the hammerers would have been at more than 4 strong, thus likely avoiding the panic check in the shooting phase altogether.

On the upside, games were done till Day 2, when I ought to head down the tables to be with my peoples again!

Great Report.

That irresistible on the Dreaded 13th was just dumb, shame.

Yes RZ great reporting. I thought the double 11's were brutal. It was cool you kept it together and tried to make something of it. Nice job.

So Day 1 of Capital City Carnage was complete, and I was honestly pretty happy with it. I just needed one more win to meet one of my goals, and with a 1-2 record, I'd hopefully face some lighter competition the next day.

Sunday morning was beautiful, and I took advantage with an 8 mile run before a shower, a nice breakfast, and a wander down to the venue.

My opponent was Keenan from San Antonio and his High Elves. We were almost a perfect match experience wise- both having played about 25-30 games (he since starting, me since restarting the hobby). Keenan had played against Dwarves twice before, but with anvils, and I'd played High Elves once before, but against high magic/shooting. That's not what Keenan had. He was sporting:

Prince on Stardragon with 2+ re-rollable dragon armor, and a 4+ ward save. He was also carrying a longbow, lance and amulet of magical attacks.
Noble BSB on barded Elven steed with Sword of Might, Helm of Fortune, and the Gem of Courage.
Mage, level 1 with 2 scrolls
20 Phoenix guard with full command, war banner, and skeinsliver
12 Swordmasters with full command, ad the Banner of Walkin' Through the Woods
20 Spearmen with full command and Lion Standard
10 Archers
Great Eagle
3x Repeater bolt throwers

The morning's scenario was to Pillage 6th Street. (6th street here in Austin is full of drinking establishments and, usually, full of drunks). A road ran down the center of the board, with 4 pubs, 2 on each side. They were impassible terrain for this scenario and could not be entered. We were given the choice to pull one piece of terrain off, or move it, which, for some reason, I passed on. Highest US (minimum 5) controlled each pub, which granted an objective point, +1 leadership and +1 combat res.

This left the main field severely restricted, which hurt, given my blocks needed to be able to support each other. It also gave the dragon plenty of places to hide. The only upside was that it was easy for me to grab the pubs, and take advantage of the +1 combat resolution.

Keenan wisely put his bolt throwers on his table edge (with one exception that went out to my right on a hill, in order to cut down my hiding places. His dragon was well hidden, and his swordmasters were going to advance through the massive forests on the right. His Phoenix guard and BSB were set up along the outside of the street on my left, a unit that I needed to face with my longbeards or hammerers. His archers and spears were in the middle.

Unfortunately, I ended up with normal warriors and slayers facing down his phoenix guard. Both my heavy blocks were in the middle, and my other warriors, running out of somewhere to go went to the right of the street. I figured they'd help scare off the swordmasters and clog things up for his dragon. I was regretting all that back patting I did last game for taking two burning bolt throwers. I was now down to exactly two ways to deal with the dragon- the organ gun (sub optimal) and the MR of Challenge (good if he made a mistake). Keenan wasn't clear on the rune, so I read the text out loud at one point. His reaction was "Oh, so I just don't look at that unit then...". My heart sunk- the young man caught on quick.

Still, I was hoping with all the woods and impassible terrain, I might be able to set up an unfavorable flee path for his dragon through some of the nasty stuff and force a fight anyways. I put my dragonslayer wide, to wade safely through the woods and perhaps cause problems, and my runesmith (now dead in 3/3 games) decided that maybe the safest place was in the longbeards in case the dragon came around to clean up the war machines.

Here is the (very congested) battlefield after a Strollaz move up the guts.




Scenario based around capturing drinking establishments?! How can we lose?


Keenan's mage ended up with Shield of Saphery, but didn't ever attempt the one spell, so... no further comment there. In fact, he mentioned throughout the game that he enjoyed it so much more without having to worry about magic. After last game, I was inclined to agree.

Turn One

He was at +2 on the dice-off and won it, confidently taking first turn. The dragon slipped wide around the woods, with swordmasters using their banner to slip up in support. Spearmen held back, and archers arranged to shoot down the road, with a bolt thrower sighting down a small gap between them. His eagle flew a couple inches from my longbeards to force a failed charge.

The shooting phase wasn't too bad- some slayers fell to a bolt thrower, and I lost a crewman and took two wounds on my strength 7 bolt thrower. More dangerously, I lost two of my organ gun crewman when it proved to be just barely in the line of sight of the bolt thrower out to the extreme right. Yikes.

In my turn, I declared a silly solo charge with my BSB into his great eagle. I'd been deciding whether to charge the whole unit or not, and thought I came up with something clever. The flee route took the eagle over a building, but didn't land on it- thus I:

a) Didn't destroy the eagle (I knew flyers would hop over impassible, not sure what I was thinking)
b) Put my BSB outside a unit in front of 10 bows and a bolt thrower, and
c) Would only be able to move my longbeards about 2" next turn.

In short, whoops.

More important things were happening on the right. I had advanced just about an inch too far down the road to hop my lord over to the warriors on the right, where his dragon could draw a line of sight and potentially charge if I used the Challenge rune. I spent some time trying to decide whether I could pull it off, and decided the flee paths weren't right. I left the lord in the hammerers so as not to tip my hand, but shuffled them backwards slightly trying to make it look like I was attempting to screen my damaged bolt thrower. I kept my dragonslayer in the area in case he came in handy. My gyro decided to do the valiant thing, and landed in front of my BSB to protect him from shooting. Oh the sacrifices I make for my stupidity. The lone organ gun crewman shoved his gun 1" over to get out of LOS of the bolt thrower raining death on him.

In my shooting phase, I took two pot-shots back at reapers. One bounced off a crewman and the other dealt two wounds to a machine.

After that display of devastation, I knew Keenan would be absolutely trembling. Somehow, he pulled it together for...

Turn Two

The Phoenix guard still felt it unnecessary to commit, and moved slowly (i.e. as fast as I was coming at him when I was going full tilt). The swordmasters considered their options and elected to break from the tree-line to threaten my big block of warriors. They had exposed themselves to the organ gun through a small gap (see pic below). The critical move was the dragon rider landing behind my lines in order to flame off the last crewman. I thought I saw an opening here, and would see if I could exploit it in my turn.

Shooting ignored my gyro and wrecked my damaged bolt thrower, and the dragon breath burned up my last organ gun crewman. It'd have been great to get a full blast on the sword masters, but it was not to be.

In the bottom of two, it was go time. I pushed my slayers and warriors a little forward to keep the elves on my left occupied and moved my BSB with his longbeard babysitters close enough to provide re-rolls to the hammerer unit, if I could pull off the Challenge. The warriors moved forward to open a landing space for the dragon, while the hammerers performed a turn maneuver (making them a 4 wide unit) and moved 2" closer to the dragon, with my lord in the front rank. The dragonslayer stepped out directly in front of the dragon (and more importantly, in the general vicinity of where it might flee towards), and I was about ready. Things looked like so:



Where's Admiral Ackbar when you need him?


In other movement news, my extra crew were running for the newly vacated organ gun to fire it, and my miners, the go-getters of the tournament arrived once again on turn 2. The gyro shifted over to shoot some exposed swordmasters.

For shooting, I blasted down just 3 swordmasters, enough for a panic check, though it was easily passed. On to...

Turn 3

And here comes the MR of Challenge! The Dragon looked to be about 8 or 9 inches from the table edge, clearly too close to risk a flee reaction, so in he went. Keenan was clearly disheartened, but sucked it up. The swordmasters charged into my warriors after some debate, deciding not to subject themselves to another gyro shot. On the left, the phoenix guard charged the slayers, who were dwindling fast thanks to a bolt thrower with nothing better to do. On the right, the bolt thrower on the hill emptied a point blank fusillade at the miners, killing two, but failing to panic them. A couple stray arrows failed to make any impression on the gyrocopter, and we were on to combat.

Finally, the hammerers were relieved to be accompanying the king as instead of acting as an enormous fire magnet, all they had to do was cheer him on in a battle of immovable force vs..... immovable force. My armor was designed for this kind of encounter and did the trick nicely, taking no wounds. I decided on balance that it was probably going to be more efficient to throw attacks on the dragon. Didn't do the math on this, but it seemed like my mundane great weapon was unlikely to actually do much. I managed to get one in on the dragon, and when combined with outnumber and a banner, the prince was testing on a 7, which he failed. The flee took him a couple inches over the wood, which avoided destruction... damn. I was going to have one shot with the dragonslayer before the thing rallied again, and I was really out of ways to pin it down.

Elsewhere, the swordmasters did appalling things to my warriors, killing 7 and taking them out of contact with the brewery. I passed the break test, but knew it was going to get ugly in a hurry.

Over on the left, I was trying to get something going...




In my turn 3, I charged the dragon with my dragonslayer, who'd positioned for something like this. I could have done this better, but it was hard to know just where the dragon would end up. Just a little more time, and I could have had him running towards an edge a little closer. As it was, the flee path wasn't ideal, but the table edge was 11 1/2" away. Keenan rolled the dice one by one, coming up with, in order...

A one

A five

A six

Dragon gone... huge! Miners went in to the bolt thrower, and I shifted the longbeards and BSB back to support the warriors on the right, trying to give a BSB bonus, on the left, pushing the slayers right up into the face of the phoenix guard. My hammerers and lord turned to face the swordmasters, but covered their eyes from the intense awfulness of warriors in combat with anything better than a basic human. Keenan rolled a ton of hits and wounds, and I evened it out with a ton of saves to somehow tie the combat, but it was ugly.

The gyrocopter flew over and blasted about 8 spear elves, and panicked them away.

Turn 4

The large phoenix guard unit charged in to my slayers, but elswehere, things were quiet. Spears rallied, and bows arranged themselves to shoot up the gyro.

The phoenix guard just barely managed to kill all the slayers and overran by a huge amount, which was terrible news. Our respective unit sizes were very close, and he hit harder than I did. I'd just dithered around with the longbeards and left the warriors having to try to survive a turn of combat against the Phoenix guard. The buildings were really making it difficult to keep my forces supporting eachother.

In my turn, I suddenly realized that we were going to be close to a draw. I'd gotten his dragon general and one bolt thrower, but he'd gotten two warmachines and it looked like he'd pick up both units of warriors, with at least one of their standards. I decided now was the time to act rashly, and sent my lord into the swordsmen. I figured a challenge would reduce attacks on my rank and file, give me some good overkill and keep things under control.

On the left, I did the best I could, moving the warriors forward to make sure I received the brewery bonus and the Phoenix guard were out. The longbeards turned around *again* to set up a charge if the warriors held.

Combat was pretty terrible. The Dwarf Lord went in, and scored only two hits, which came up double 1s. Oh crap. After further horrendous casualties, I was testing on a 7 with no re-roll. Sweating hard, I came up with it. Now I was in trouble. With more rank bonus gone, and getting to the point where I was in danger of losing outnumber, *and* still stuck in a challenge I was going to be up against it in...

Turn 5 & 6

On the left, my warriors took the charge from the phoenix guard, who some how only killed a single warrior. This left us at equal numbers, which meant I lost, but could test on leadership. With the BSB and brewery bonus, it was an easy re-rollable Ld9. That spelled game over for the phoenix guard, who took a full unit of longbeards to the flank. They broke and escaped, but gave up the unit standard and the army standard. Nice!

Elsewhere, my gyro exposed itself to one round of shooting from a bolt thrower, while trying to finish off the spears and archers, which was enough to shoot it down (6 hits, 3 wounds, no saves).

On the right? Not so nice. My lord came up with a single wound to drop the swordmaster champ with no overkill, and passed a break test on an 8.



Mercifully, so many of the warriors were dying, he was running out of guys in base to base contact. Silver linings!

Combat continued in this stomach churning, heart stopping fashion to the bitter end...



Wow, what a great picture. It tells so much about what happened since the last one! Great job!

In short, my lord inflicted 2 wounds over 4 rounds of combat, waiting until the final turn to finally kill 4. The swordmaster BSB, now holding my warriors' captured standard, held on a 6, retaining half his points and two banners worth! Damn!


When all was said and done, it looked close- I'd gotten two banners, two table quarters, and his general, along with a bolt thrower and half the swordmasters. He'd gotten a unit of warriors, 2 war machines, my slayers, a banner, and my gyro.

In the end, I squeaked a win by less than 100 points, and with 2 bonus points, this put me on a...

18-5 win

Yeah! This game was a thriller to play- with the whole thing having a chance to turn seemingly every turn after the 2nd. Keenan was into it, literally jumping up and down cheering for his swordmasters. He easily earned my best game vote for his good spirit, and extremely friendly nature, especially in the face of losing his dragon so early.

That left just one game to go...

Excellent report, I fell asleep halfway through reading it, lol.

feth the dragon!

Karon wrote:I fell asleep halfway through reading it, lol!

Well if that's not a glowing endorsement, I don't know what is...

lol. It should be. He woke up and finished it. lol

Congratz on the win. I have to admit, dwarfs are starting to make me sad. It seems like their whole goal is to outlast the enemy and hope turn 6 gets there quickly. I am really starting that MR of challenge though. Nice job with that.

It sounds like you faced some pretty good guys so far. It's nice to hear not all tournament goers are win at all costs people. A lot of people make it sound like that is all there is out there.